Vitale v. City of New York
| Decision Date | 22 November 1983 |
| Citation | 470 N.Y.S.2d 358,458 N.E.2d 817,60 N.Y.2d 861 |
| Parties | , 458 N.E.2d 817, 15 Ed. Law Rep. 515 Peter VITALE, Respondent, v. CITY OF NEW YORK et al., Appellants. |
| Court | New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals |
The order of the Appellate Division, 88 A.D.2d 541, 450 N.Y.S.2d 391, should be reversed, with costs, and the action dismissed.
Plaintiff, an industrial arts teacher at a junior high school, was injured when he was assaulted by one of the students as he sought to break up an altercation in the hallway of the school. Asserted liability of the city was predicated on evidence of unjustified failure fully to have observed a detailed security plan promulgated by the board of education pursuant to section 2801 of the Education Law. * This plan was designed to maintain public order on school property, and among its beneficiaries were students, teachers, staff members visitors and other licensees and invitees alike.
Plaintiff recognizes, as he must, that absent a special duty owed to him liability for his injuries may not be imposed on the city for its breach of a duty owed generally to persons in the school system and members of the public (Glick v. City of New York, 53 A.D.2d 528, 384 N.Y.S.2d 184, affd. 42 N.Y.2d 831, 397 N.Y.S.2d 382, 366 N.E.2d 83; Bass v. City of New York, 38 A.D.2d 407, 330 N.Y.S.2d 569, affd. 32 N.Y.2d 894, 346 N.Y.S.2d 814, 300 N.E.2d 154; Riss v. City of New York, 22 N.Y.2d 579, 293 N.Y.S.2d 897, 240 N.E.2d 860). It is his contention, however, that a special relationship was created between him and the board of education when the security plan was adopted and that the board breached its special duty of care to him when it failed to enforce its own security rules. He grounds his assertion of special duty, and seeks to distinguish the holding in the Glick case, on the circumstance that as a teacher he was himself an integral component of that plan. Nothing in the adoption or content of the plan warrants a finding that it was designed or intended specially for his benefit or that of other teachers in the school. They stood as its beneficiaries in exactly the same position as students, other personnel in the school system, and members of the public who came on the school property. We reject his contention that because the teachers had a role to play in the implementation of the plan they were somehow thereby converted into its special beneficiaries. Indeed other than reciting the bare fact that as a...
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